Does Vista Run Second Life?

Wed. Feb. 21, 2007

Not to make this blog be "All-Vista-All-The-Time", but I wanted to chime in about some issues that have surfaced around running Second Life on Vista systems.

I first heard that there might be a problem when the Second Life Insider reported that one of their readers received video card error messages when trying to run Second Life after installing Vista. It appears that some people can run SL on Vista just fine, but some cannot. Further digging into the topic indicates that success depends on your video card and whether or not it supports OpenGL. If you are a Second Life resident moving to Vista, you may want to look into updating the drivers for your video card.

Systems Dell ships today with Vista and nVidia graphics solutions have the native 3D rendering support required for Second Life. Including the XPS 710 desktops and XPS 1710 notebooks that you can configure within Second Life for purchase in real life. ATI's OpenGL ICD has just recently been made available, so while it may not be shipping installed on Dell systems today, we have added the ATI drivers with OpenGL ICD support to our Drivers & Downloads site.

Now it appears that help is on the way from Linden Lab, as well. Steve Linden blogs that changes coming with the First Look Viewer will enable Linden to debug problems with running Second Life under Windows Vista. No exact ETA on that, but it's reassuring to know they're working on it.

 

del.icio.us email this digg digg
Only published comments... Wednesday, February 21, 2007 10:10 AM
by Laura P. Thomas, Global eCommerce
Filed under: , , ,

Comments  Comment RSS Feed

CR Hiestand said:
Instead of making this blog a Vista-All-The-Time blog, it seems that it is becoming a Second-Life-ALL-The-Time blog. I'm not sure about other people, but I personally don't think that Second Life is very interesting, and would rather not hear about it all the time on this Blog. Maybe talking more about your horrible repair center would be better? 
February 21, 2007 3:16 PM
Al said:
Very well thought out CR, being that there is only 6 posts about second life in over 600 total posts....I would hardly call your comments based on fact
February 22, 2007 3:34 PM
Steven Dowling said:

I believe this is more relevant purely on the driver issues. What is going on with nVidia and their driver releases for Vista? I currently own (proudly) an XPS 600 and XPS 700. I have two nVidia GeFroce 7800 GTX's running in SLI and I just purchased (from Dell) an nVidia GeFroce 8800 GTS (640). Ever since I installed Vista on my XPS 700 I have been receiving intermittant blue screens of death. After updating my ForceWare drivers I got another BSOD. I can't even shut the computer down properly or even restart it - it hangs with no video output and never shuts down.

Is this because of the nVidia drivers for Vista? I've ruled out everything but the board itself (590) and the GPUs. Also, I find it very interesting that you can't order up an XPS 710 (any flavor) with Vista installed, only XP. Is there something you guys aren't telling us? If you have info on incompatibility, please tell us! I just forked over $500 for the new card and I'm a little nervous. Has nVidia worked out the issues related to the DirextX 10 issue? Is this thing going to work properly and not crash on me like my computer has been? Please, do you guys have any information on these driver issues?

February 22, 2007 6:05 PM
Harry Nguyen said:
Lol, Second Life is boring.

Now, tell me why my Vista isn't here yet.
February 22, 2007 10:33 PM
Tito said:
Tank you even if SL is boring indeed :)
February 23, 2007 4:45 PM
John Henderson said:
It doesn't really matter if it runs or not since Dell still hasn't shipped their "express upgrades".
February 28, 2007 10:25 AM
Tom Mc said:

Another boring SL user whinning about Vista...Following the Dell suggestion I did upgrade the ATI driver and that stopped the generic driver message. Now I can not get past the black screen sign on page.  Now I get a message that SL crashed.  Vista is the only change that I made to my fairly new XPS 410. SL worked as good as SL works with XP. I would appreciate any suggestions...SL has their head in the sand as usual. I think Vista platform was a total surprise to them.

I did call Dell support only to find out that Vista problems are software issues and not covered by my 3 years extended service program, but for a one time charge $129...they would help.

March 24, 2007 2:10 PM
Laura P. Thomas, Global eCommerce said:

Tom Mc - Sorry to hear about the black screen.  I've looked into it and verified that the issue is an ATI OpenGL driver bug.  Looks like Linden Labs has noted the same as well. 

Our Dell team will work with ATI to receive and qualify a fix in the next few weeks, after which time we'll promote it to our Drivers & Downloads site.

March 24, 2007 2:10 PM
Tom Mc said:

Hello Laura,

 

Can you report any progress either from Linden Lab or ATI regarding the Open GL issue?.....I have seen nothing published by Second Life....are you sure Linden is aware that Vista has been released?

 

 

 

April 17, 2007 11:03 AM
Ant Onaf said:
So does second life run on Vista?  And are nVidia drivers compatible with Vista yet?  Anyone have an answer?
September 3, 2007 5:00 PM
Laura Thomas/Pyrrha Dell said:
Ant Onaf -- unfortunately, according to Second Life's web site (http://secondlife.com/corporate/sysreqs.php) Second Life does NOT currently support Windows Vista.  Hopefully, they are working on it, though. 
September 7, 2007 8:47 PM
Terry Oates said:
As of October 30, 2007, the Second Life website referenced by Laura Thomas above DOES list Vista support for specific ATI (9500 and "better")and nVidia (6600 and better) video cards. 
October 30, 2007 4:29 PM
Laura Thomas/Pyrrha Dell said:
That's great news!  Thanks for the update Terry.
October 31, 2007 11:54 AM

Leave a Comment

Compose
Preview
(required ) 
(required , not published) 
(optional )
(required ) 

Note: Conversation is encouraged and expected. However, moderation of comments is necessary to prevent spam, personal attacks, profanity, mentions of legal action or off-topic commentary. We will not publish comments that advertise third-party shopping sites or ones that violate our terms of service.

Comments related to specific product support or customer service issues will be addressed separately rather than posted here. Please use the links in Contact Us for product and customer service assistance.